


One Last Temptation

by HarveyWallbanger



Series: The Bloody Chamber And Other Stories [4]
Category: Constantine (TV), Hellblazer, Hellblazer & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alcohol, Canon - Comics, Consent Issues, Creepy, Drug Use, Gen, M/M, generally disturbing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 01:49:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3100559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What's the thing that money can't buy?</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Last Temptation

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a nice story. I don't think that anything that happens in it is serious enough to merit the use of warnings, but if you think you might not want to read something that has even a whiff of dubious consent about it, please turn back. Take care, Dear Readers.  
> I am not associated with Hellblazer or Constantine, and this school is not associated with Hellblazer or Constantine. Do not try any of this at home. Thank you, and good night.

He met Charlotte at one of Ray Monde's parties. “I've heard so much about you,” she giggled. When he asked her what she'd heard, she just giggled again. She was young, beautiful, rich, and bored. And utterly, completely empty. It was easy to like her, because she was a beautiful mirror: anything about yourself you wanted to see reflected in her, you could. She had money- drugs- houses- cars- and she was game, so John started associating with her. Well, following her around, more like. She didn't object to another hanger-on, especially one who was from England!- and knew so many interesting things!- and was so naughty!- and so wicked! Later, more charitably, John came to think that she was interested in humanity, that all her money made her free to indulge in her appreciation. John was another piece in her collection, a real conversation piece, but it wasn't as though he weren't being compensated. The money fell like litter; the drugs came to him faster than he could cram them into himself; he had so many good times that they all blurred together, into one long carpet of pleasure, in those houses and cars.  
One summer night, she sent a car to pick him up and take him to her parents' house in Westchester. When he got there, the party was already going- it had been for hours, or for days. There were bodies everywhere, all beautiful in that way that rich people have, on display like works of art in a museum. Like in a museum, it seemed that he could look, but not touch. Everyone he got near turned away from him; he slid right off of them, it seemed. So, for what felt like an eternity, he wandered around alone, drinking and smoking and swallowing whatever he found until he discovered Charlotte in a little chamber paneled with dark wood. A grotto- he thought, fancifully.  
“John,” she laughed, the straps of her top slipping down her shoulders. The young man standing next to her pulled them back up, let them go with a snap. She giggled. “John, this is S.W. Manor. S.W., this is John.”  
“What's 'S.W.' for?” John smirked, “You sound like a bloody solicitors' firm.”  
S.W. frowned.  
“Stanley Wayne,” said Charlotte, smirking as her head fell to the side, “Stanley wants the things that money can't buy.”  
Still frowning, but with less intensity, S.W. stuck a finger into the front of Charlotte's top, and poured the dregs of his drink down her cleavage.  
“Asshole,” she spat, and stamped out of the room.  
“I can see why you prefer 'S.W.',” John said coolly, “So, tell me, what are the things that money can't buy? Because I sure as fuck can't imagine what they might be.”  
“You're poor,” says S.W..  
“No shit.”  
“You wouldn't understand.”  
John laughed, “Oh, fuck off- what is this, The Great Gatsby?”  
Later, S.W. found him in the bathroom, taking a piss.  
“Like what you see?” John smirked.  
“You're not afraid of me.”  
“Very astute. If you're going to stand there staring, at least give me a fag.”  
“What?”  
“Give me a cigarette,” John huffed, looking up- of course the fucker would be taller than him. By then, he'd finished, anyway, and he was pushing past S.W., when S.W. grabbed him, held him against the bathroom counter.  
“Want to see how the other half lives?” John asked. He held himself still, and felt the air vibrate around his skin as he waited for S.W. to kiss him or to grope him further, or something, but instead S.W. just said: “I heard that you can get people things.”  
“I'm not a dealer, mate.”  
“I don't need drugs.”  
“What, then?”  
“We need to trust each other a little bit more before I can tell you that.”  
“Fine,” John said, then in a fake American accent: “Have your people call my people.” He shoved S.W. away, and then made his way down the hall; all the way feeling, somehow, like he was fighting his way through the air, which had developed mass and presence.  
He waits for the call, but it doesn't come. Just as well.

The next time he sees Stanley is a fortnight later. John's a guest of Charlotte's at the home of a friend of hers, Janette.  
“I don't know what she's into, but she wants to meet you.”  
“Don't know what your own friends get up to behind closed doors?” he chides, takes a drink from the bottle they've been passing between them.  
“She's not really my friend. We went to school together. Our parents know each other. It's not for me.”  
“What's that, love?”  
“All of that black magic shit.”  
John laughs. “You're the first person I've ever met to say that.”  
As though involuntarily, she gives a clipped shrug. For a moment, there's a still to the fizz, the suggestion of something more than what he's seen of her; then she shrugs again, languorously. “Too much work, darling. Too much dirt. Too much dirty work. I have money,” she waves her hand, “Why do I need to try so hard?”  
When they get there, Charlotte rushes into the waiting tattooed arms of a man she knows, and that's the last John sees of her that night. It doesn't take long for Stanley to come to him.  
“Stan,” he says, “You don't call, you don't write...”  
“S.W..”  
“Please. You'll always be Stanley to me. How've you been?”  
“I want something.”  
“Don't we all?”  
“No. I need you to get something for me.”  
“I can do that- but not out of the goodness of my heart, I'm sure you're aware,” John says, lighting a cigarette.  
“I don't discuss money.”  
“What? With the help?”  
“At all.”  
“Let me guess, someone will give me a call?”  
“It's neater that way.”  
John takes a long drag, blows the smoke into Stanley's face. This may be another wind-up, but John's starting to find it amusing. “Well, what's the dainty relic you'd like to get your filthy paws on, then?”  
“I'm not discussing that, either. Someone will get in touch with you.”  
“Oh, well, how very tidy. I'll just fuck off, then.”  
Stanley grabs his arm, hard. Without thinking, John grins at him.  
“You like that?”  
“Oh, yeah,” John spits, “Getting manhandled by the gentry gets my rocks off every time.” He yanks back his arm. “You like to take it, or just give it out?”  
Stanley snorts. “Wouldn't you like to know?”  
“No,” John shrugs, “I wouldn't actually. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to talk to someone who doesn't look at though they took Psycho as a how-to video.”  
He has a drink. He has another. He takes a pill. He has another drink. He places another pill on his tongue, thinks better of it, cleaves it in twain with his front teeth, and gives the other half back to the girl who gave it to him. Who rolls her eyes, but swallows it.  
“Waste not, want not,” he hears himself slur. He manages to rise from where he's sat, and find the loo, which is surrounded by couples pawing each other and singles just posing. Without thinking why, he lifts the sleeve of his tee shirt, sees the points of fuschia rising and blooming, like undersea plants in the light of the bathroom, on his upper arm. He's not sure what this makes him feel, but it's so far away that he knows he won't remember any of this.  
He rolls out of the bathroom along the walls, spends a long moment leaning there. In the time it's taken him to piss, the hallway has emptied- how long was he in there? Far away, he hears some kind of row. Sounds like someone hacking up a lung, or being sick, or- He shakes his head. Fuck knows what it really is, but it's fucking irritating. Dribbling out invective, John pushes away from the wall, staggers forward, down a corridor, and another. When he looks at the walls, it's like looking at the sun through his fingers- pulsing, liquid warmth. Are the walls making that terrible sound, that wet smack, and that gut-deep moan? He touches one, runs his hand along it like the hide of an animal. There's a door before him, which he opens.  
Stanley looks at him. He looks at Stanley. The other man can't look at either of them. The topless woman standing, watching in the corner lifts her skirt, sneers and hisses like a panther, then cackles. John closes the door.  
He wakes up lying on some kind of small couch, of which the Victorians were so fond. “A divan,” he mutters, and sits up. That's a mistake. He gurgles out a moan, and lets himself fall back into sleep.  
When he wakes up again, it's dark. Charlotte is standing over him. “It's time to go,” she says softly. Her lipstick is blurred in a pink aureole around her mouth.  
“I was getting bored, anyway,” he mutters.  
“Thank you for a lovely time, Janette,” Charlotte says, as they're leaving, then, sheepishly “John, this is my friend, Janette. This is her house.” In her red silk robe, Janette gives him a dazzling smile. He takes her red-nailed hand.  
“Nice to meet you, darling,” he says. He almost blurts out, Didn't recognize you without your tits out, but he stops himself. But when did he see her tits? It must have been a dream. Fuck. He had so many dreams last night.

Chas is carefully avoiding asking him where he's been. John chuckles under his breath, to see Chas, out of the corner of his eye, fretting like someone's mum. Not John's mum, of course- nor Chas' for that matter. Is he actually wringing his hands?  
“Just ask, already,” John says, fixing him with a look over the top of his sunglasses, “I know you're gagging to.”  
Chas shakes his head. “I don't need to know.”  
“Of course you want to know. About Stanley.”  
“Who's that?”  
Then, perversity takes over, and John says nothing else.

It's been a hard day's week. This is beginning to seem like a proper job. Only in the weariness, mental and physical, it produces, though. Who knew it was so difficult going to parties, being seen? Suddenly, it's important that he be seen. Charlotte tells him so. John doesn't need to ask to whom the sight of him is so vital.  
She takes him back to Janette's house. This time, he goes a little easier on the chemicals, tries to see more. Even with moderation, he finds himself stumbling around the place, wandering down corridors, waking up in rooms he doesn't remember entering. How long could the night be, that this happens so many times? Not once does he recall seeing sunlight, so it has to be the same night.  
He starts awake in- what is this, a bedroom? He thinks he's on a bed. Without opening his eyes, he stretches out his arms. It is a bed.  
“You snore,” says a voice, dark and flat.  
To his credit, John manages not to make any embarrassing exclamations. “Had no complaints before.”  
“Did you find my item?”  
John opens one eye. “I thought you didn't discuss things like this.”  
“I can, now. There's no one here to listen, or to see. We're completely alone.”  
“How cozy.” John closes his eye again. He feels the bed shake, and a hot weight settle on top of him. He doesn't open his eyes.  
“Do you know what I could do to you?” Stanley's straddling John; his mouth is far from John's face, his throat. This is important.  
“You might want to wait until I'm awake,” John mutters.  
“You really aren't afraid of me.”  
“Told you I wasn't.”  
“Where's my property?”  
“S'on its way. Got held up in customs, as you might imagine.”  
After a moment, Stanley says, “You're telling the truth.”  
“Just like my mum taught me.”  
“I can make some calls.”  
“Do that.”  
Stanley laughs. “I think I'll keep you, John Constantine.”  
“You'll have to catch me, first.”  
Stanley laughs again. It's far away, and John is glad.  
When he awakes again, Stanley's lying next to him.  
“Find your own bed,” John mutters, and turns onto his side. For his trouble, he gets the length of Stanley's body pressed up against his back. “If you want a cuddle, go get me a cup of coffee, first.”  
Stanley turns him onto his back. John lets him. At this point, resistance, as the saying goes, is fucking pointless.  
“But we are in bed together,” Stanley says softly, “I made those calls. Someone's going to pick up my property, and they're going to deliver it to you, and you're going to deliver it to me.”  
“Seems pointlessly complicated. Just get your man to bring it to you.”  
“No. I want to see you again.”  
“Familiarity breeds contempt.”  
He presses his hand between John's legs. “That's not contempt I feel.”  
“Don't take it personally. Happens every morning. I just need to have a slash.”  
“What?”  
“Need to piss. Get off.” He smacks Stanley on the hip, and Stanley moves.  
He follows John to the bathroom. Before John can zip himself up again, Stanley's hands are down the front of his trousers. John doesn't say anything. It's useless to complain, but he sure as fuck isn't going to encourage him.  
When Stanley's gone, he splashes water on his face, rubs it all over Janette's towels. Goes through the medicine cabinet, takes a handful of pills from the various vials he finds; swallows a couple, and shoves the rest into his pockets. Charlotte's asleep in bed with the tattooed man from the other night and someone of indeterminate gender John's never seen before.  
“Charlotte,” he says, “I need to get back.”  
“Just have Janette's driver drop you off.”  
“How do I do that?”  
Charlotte mutters something into the shoulder of her friend.  
“I can't understand you,” John snaps.  
This just makes her drowsier.  
“Bugger this for a game of soldiers,” he mutters. He goes down some stairs, finds a phone, and calls Chas.  
“Do you know what time it is?” Chas grumbles.  
“No, actually. I need a ride.” He gives Chas directions, and after swearing that he'll pay for the gas he uses, Chas agrees to come for him. John goes out to the front of the house, stands in the center of the gravel driveway, smokes half a packet of fags, paces and kicks at the gravel, hugs his arms. He's nearly sick, but manages to keep it in. After God knows how long, when the sun is beginning to rise, Chas arrives. John doesn't even let him come to a full stop before he yanks the door open.  
“Just drive. Just get me the fuck out of here.”  
Chas says nothing.  
Until they get back to the city.  
“Are you all right?”  
“Yeah. I'm doing really well.”  
“Do you want to stop for breakfast?”  
John shakes his head. “Just take me home. Please.”  
At home, John lies down on the couch. He doesn't feel himself falling asleep. When he wakes, the sunlight is an amber flag unfurling down the sitting room floor from the window. On the table, next to him, there's a cup of tea. He takes a sip. It's cold; he says so.  
“I'll make you another one.”  
“No. It's fine. Thank you.”  
“You must feel like shit if you're saying 'please' and 'thank you'. Are you going to tell me what this is about? Who Stanley is?”  
“Mind your own business.”  
“Gladly.”

It starts easily. The things that Stanley asks for aren't difficult to find, and John starts to wonder just what it is he's doing there. It's fairly obvious that he's there for Stanley's amusement, but beyond that-  
Then, Stanley asks him for a clock that supposedly belonged to Rasputin.  
“Interesting man, don't you think?”  
“Failed history, mate. You'll have to enlighten me.”  
“He brought down an empire with the power of his,” Stanley smiles, his true smile- not the one for company- toothy and obscene, “persuasion.”  
“Impressive,” John deadpans.  
“They say it was thirteen inches long.”  
“That'd bring anything down,” John mutters, then, “This will take some doing,” frowning and absently running his finger along his jaw. Fuck knows how. He's never even heard of the fucking thing, let alone seen photos or drawings.  
But Stanley just laughs. “Lighten up, John. It's waited a hundred years; it can wait a little bit longer for me. But let's talk about something else...”  
That 'something else' is sex, obviously. It usually comes down to that. Sex, or drugs, or some slightly less tangible but still predictable longing. It doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor. Stanley's just stupid enough to think that the money makes his desire special; that it separates him from the rest of the cesspit of human emotion and need.  
“Yeah, all right,” John says and smiles. It'll buy him some time. He's already decided that even if he's able, somehow, to find the real thing, he's going to pawn off a fake on Stanley. At this point, the irritating bastard's asking for it. A fool and his money are soon parted, and Stanley a tremendous fool sitting on a tremendous pile of money.

It's been a month, and Stanley's stopped asking about his clock. He gave John some money, already, but doesn't seem overly-concerned about it. What does seem to concern him is John. Having John near him. His money is both a promise and a threat that Stanley can use as he desires. Just like everything else about him.  
The sex is- weird, is the only word for it. On the surface, it's conventional enough: Stanley likes it rough. Giving or taking. There are the accepted accoutrements- the restraints, and masks, and implements- and it's nothing John hasn't seen before. Maybe not all at once, but-  
That isn't the weird part. It's- Christ, he can't explain it. It's something to do with the way Stanley looks at him, touches him. It's not hunger- it's beyond that. It's what comes after hunger. Is there a word for that?  
Until John sees Charlotte again, at some party, he doesn't understand. She's just as sweet and light and dim as ever, like a lamp that only knows how to flicker, that it's a comfort to see her. So, it's easy to ask:  
“What's the thing that money can't buy?”  
It comes as a complete surprise that she knows exactly what he's talking about. She frowns, waves aside the smoke from her cigarette, says: “Well, it's you, darling.”  
He raises his eyebrows. “Little me?”  
“It's people. People are the thing that money can't buy.”  
He snorts. “Of course you can buy people.”  
She smiles, a little sadly. “No, you can't. Not that it's stopped him from trying. You can buy a person's compliance, their silence, their lies, but you can't buy them. You can't buy love.”  
It's so obvious that he can't contain his laughter. He laughs until he's nauseous. Fucking Stanley Wayne Manor. All that brutality, all that violence, and all he wants is to be loved. The more he needs it, the worse he feels, and the worse he feels, the worse he behaves. The man has all the emotional nuance of a psychopathic child. And more money than God. For all the good it does him, deep down, in his rotten soul.  
What comes after hunger is digestion. Stanley treats you like he already owns you. Like you're already inside of him, a part of him. He won't let you go.  
John can't contain it. When he gets home that night- or morning- or whatever time means when you're up for days at a time, and spend the days in a waking dream- when he gets home, he's aware of himself crashing from room to room. Things fall down around him, but he doesn't feel himself hitting them, barely hears them make contact with the floor. Chas comes rushing in- from wherever he was, to wherever John is.  
“What the fuck-”  
John's laughing to himself, almost doubled over. “Stan wants the thing that money can't buy.”  
“What?”  
“You heard me.”  
“Okay,” Chas sighs. He goes toward John, and without thinking, John inhales so sharply it hurts, starts away from him. “It's okay,” Chas says softly, stepping back, with his hands up, “You just need to sleep. Just lie down here,” he points to a bed, which has suddenly materialized. It's Chas' bed. He's in Chas' room.  
“I knew you wanted to get me in bed,” John says, but it comes out neither as provocatively nor as cruelly as he intended. To his ears, he just sounds far-away. And desperate.  
“That's right,” Chas says, taking another step back, “It's my number one fantasy. Just lie down. I'll get you some water.” He leaves the room.  
“Come on,” John calls, dropping himself onto the bed, “You know you've thought about it. I see the way you look at me.”  
Chas comes back. “I don't care if you want to act like an asshole, but don't yell.”  
He grabs Chas' hand. “I see the way you look at me,” he says more quietly.  
“Even if you weren't horrifically drunk, I'm not that desperate.” Chas takes back his hand; John's closes around itself.  
“I'd be. I can't recall the last time you had a date. You can't have had many chances when you were younger, with your mother and Slut always on you- figuratively speaking. Unless it wasn't fig-”  
“Stop it. You need to sleep.”  
“I'd sleep better if I had company.”  
“I don't even want to look at you, right now. Go to sleep, John.”  
Again, he doesn't remember falling asleep. After he wakes, he lies there, with his eyes closed. Where is Chas? Is he asleep, as well? Where? Not in John's bed, John knows. If it were him, that's what he'd do. It is what he's doing.  
As he remembers what he said, he winces, covers his face with his hand. He should pretend that he doesn't, when he speaks to Chas again, but somehow, that seems almost as bad as having said it in the first place. He can't apologize. He shakes his head, feels the softness of the pillow against his cheek. He can smell Chas' shampoo, cheap and flowery and sweet. His mother used to buy it by the case, and even years after her death, bottles keep cropping up. It's shampoo; it doesn't go bad, Chas shrugs. John just sneers and says that it smells like formaldehyde.  
It truly is an irritating scent, and the more he thinks about how much it annoys him, the stronger it seems, and the tighter his chest feels, like something collapsing in on itself, and the harder it is to swallow, and the more the bones around his eyes ache, and fuck-  
He isn't doing this. It's fucking stupid. You can't make people forgive you, and your own grief and regret will only choke you, if you let them. If Chas decides he's had enough, John will just move in with Charlotte. Show up on her doorstep, and drive himself into her household until she either tires of him or he can no longer stand her. Maybe, he muses, he'll just go directly to Stan. You wanted me, you got me, John snorts. Something that no amount of money could buy.

It's what he wants, so, that's what John gives him. Not the real thing, obviously- another forgery. To go with his clock.  
“How much?” Stanley asks.  
“Look on it as a gift, between friends,” John says, and kisses him, long and slow. Feels Stanley let go, all the way down.  
After a couple of days, though, John goes home. He gives Stanley the pleasure of telling him that he has to leave, dismissing him like the servant Stanley must imagine him to be.  
“Are you going to call your friend to pick you up?” Stanley asks.  
“I don't know if I'd really call him my friend, these days.”  
“A falling-out?”  
“More like drifting apart.”  
“My driver will drop you off wherever you like.”  
“That's very decent of you,” John says with cheery blankness. He thinks of Charlotte.  
“This'll do, mate,” John tells the driver, a block from the house, “Don't want to alienate the neighbors.”  
He gets out, lights a cigarette, walks slowly.  
His key still fits in the lock. He opens the door. Chas is at the kitchen table, having his second coffee of the morning, the one he drinks after breakfast.  
“I said some things the other night that I shouldn't have,” John says, too loudly, too quickly.  
“Hello to you. Yes. Yes, you did.”  
“And I'm sorry.”  
“Okay.”  
“But tell the truth,” John sighs, “You'd be glad to see the back of me, wouldn't you?”  
“I told you- I don't want to sleep with you.”  
“What?”  
“What do you mean 'what'? I don't want to 'see the back of you', or whatever you want to call it.”  
“No, no. 'See the back of me' means you'd be seeing it as I walked out the door. I mean, you'd be relieved if I left.”  
“Where is this coming from?”  
That's when John remembers that he never actually said aloud half of the words he thought the other night. “I mean- I thought that after what I said, you'd want me to leave.”  
“If I wanted that, I would have said so. I don't want you to go. I just want you to stop-” Chas glances at the ceiling, “doing whatever it is you're doing that's hurting you.”  
“I can't.”  
“I sort of figured that. I didn't say I expected you to actually stop. I'd just like it if you did.”  
“Can I sit? I'm fucking knackered.”  
Chas gestures to the chair across from him.  
“I can't tell you about any of this.”  
“I don't want to know.”  
“It all works out, then. Anymore coffee?”

Stanley might think that he got what he wanted, but what he doesn't understand is that love doesn't change you. Just like liquor or drugs don't bring out anything that isn't already inside, love doesn't turn base metal to gold. Stanley being Stanley, he has to have the clock appraised.  
It wouldn't work for John if he didn't. It takes Stanley a while to get around to it, but John knows that the longer he puts off checking, and the longer they're together, the more it worries at him. It'll worry at him, gnaw at the back of his brain every time he looks at the thing, or at John. Finally, quietly, he'll take the clock to someone he's known a long time- possibly, the person who told him about it in the first place. It's not even a good reproduction. The materials are too new. Anyone could see that. There's not even a mystery to solve. The appraiser will snatch off her glasses, disgusted. “Whoever did this has no respect for anything,” she'll spit.  
But until then- the danger is in Stan not realizing that he's being defrauded. The danger, though more remote, both in time and probability, is also in Stan realizing and not caring. In either case, then, he'd have John. One part of John's plan must flow into the other- he's not yet learned to be as adaptable as he'll one-day be- and without it all happening the way it must, John will be ensnared, immobilized. Trapped by his own cleverness and spite. In a thousand ways, John will have paid for the privilege.


End file.
